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Originally Posted by HossC
It probably goes without saying at the moment that I've omitted some images from this Julius Shulman photoset. It's "Job 1654: Jones and Emmons, Sascha Brastoff's Ceramics (Los Angeles, Calif.),1954".
Here's the structure at the right of the picture above.
Initially, I didn't realize that the wall with the name on it was at the end of a section that floated on narrow supports. This is a detail view from the side.
Now we get to see the factory, complete with stairs to the observation platform.
The observation platform turned out to be smaller than I expected.
There are plenty of examples of Sascha Brastoff's work online. This shot shows a display area with some ceramic pieces.
Unfortunately, this is the only color image in the set.
I'll finish the Shulman photos with this shot looking over the outdoor display area.
All from Getty Research Institute
Here's the building permit for the slightly later addition of a new sales office. As you can see, the address was 11520 W Olympic Boulevard.
Online Building Records
I can't see a demo permit, but there was an application to use the site as a Christmas tree lot in 1980. The current building (below), with the address 11500 W Olympic Boulevard, seems to have been built in 1981.
GSV |
Back in April of 2016, Hoss shared these interesting 1954 photos of the Sascha Brastoff ceramics factory and ultra-glamorous showroom building on Olympic Blvd. near Bundy in West Los Angeles. During its heyday in the mid 1950's, the 35,000 square foot facility employed 100 people producing hand-painted ceramics and decorative housewares.
Who WAS Sascha Brastoff? He was one of those flamboyant, creative characters who seemed more commonplace during Hollywood's golden age. Brastoff was born in Cleveland in 1917, was dancing with the Cleveland Ballet after high school, and selling out his terra-cotta "whimsies" at a prestigious gallery in New York around 1941. Stationed in Florida during WW2, he and another soldier, Hollywood fashion designer Howard Shoup (nominated 5 times for an Oscar), devised an act where Brastoff appeared as Carmen Miranda to entertain cheering military audiences. His act so impressed Broadway impresario Moss Hart, that Hart cast Brastoff in a traveling production of "Winged Victory." Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, was also bedazzled, brought Brastoff to Hollywood to appear in the film version of "Winged Victory" and gave him a contract to design costumes for Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda musicals.
Sascha Brastoff 1944
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...b7743f2a4d.jpg
Sascha Brastoff with Carmen Miranda on the set of "If I'm Lucky," 1946
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...e-costumes.jpg
Sascha Brastoff 1950's, and in Carmen Miranda drag, WW2
http://1125996089.rsc.cdn77.org/wp-c...habrastoff.jpg
After just two pictures, Brastoff wriggled out of the contract to devote himself to his hand-painted ceramics, which became popular with movie stars like Joan Crawford and Donna Reed.
Around 1950, Brastoff attracted the attention of multi-millionaire Winthrop Rockefeller, one of the famous Rockefeller bothers and later Governor of Arkansas. Although Rockefeller married twice (his first wife was socialite "Bobo" Rockefeller), and had a child, there seems little doubt that he was gay, and fell in love with Sascha - and bankrolled a Sascha Brastoff ceramics factory on Compton avenue in South Los Angeles. Within a year, the factory burned down, and Rockefeller then sank millions into the lavish complex designed by A. Quincy Jones in West Los Angeles. (Helps to have a rich sugar daddy).
1950's ad for Sascha Brastoff home decor
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5141/...c9893cca_o.jpg
During this time, the mid 1950's, Sascha's enjoyment of dressing in very convincing drag and seducing supposedly "straight" men at parties is prominently mentioned in the controversial 2012 book "Full Service" by notorious "male madam" Scotty Bowers.
In the early 1960's, a falling-out with Rockefeller and financial difficulties led to a serious nervous breakdown, after which Brastoff left his company and became a recluse for a few years. Operations of the ceramics factory continued under different ownership at a facility on Yukon Avenue in Hawthorne in 1964-65, and the gorgeous headquarters building on Olympic Blvd. was eventually demolished, replaced in 1981 by the present undistinguished office complex.
Brastoff returned to making artwork and accepting commissions for such items as decorative metal sculptures, and in 1969, he and fashion designer Howard Shoup, with whom he was then living, transformed a small, decrepit hotel at 246 26th Street in Santa Monica/Brentwood, across the street from the side of the Brentwood Country Mart, into a chic "shopping destination" called "The Esplanade." Brastoff displayed his artwork in one area, and Shoup sold fashions and French antiques in another. A 1970 article in the Los Angeles Times described The Esplanade with the headline "Mixed Bag of Wares in a Hacienda Atmosphere." The site is now occupied by a the "L'Ami" restaurant.
In 1989, two years after Shoup died, Brastoff was attacked in front of his home by a "young man under the influence of drugs." The incident demoralized him and affected his health, and he died of prostate cancer in 1993 at age 75.
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gsv
That's soooooo cool Beaudry.
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